[Reader-list] Pressure-cooked kids: An article by Anita Vachharajani

[Chintan Girish Modi]

>From http://aniamit.blogspot.com/2011/03/pressure-cooked-kids.html

Pressure-cooked kids

By Anita Vachharajani

Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which I reviewed for the
DNAsome weeks back, is causing a sharp intake of breath among
educationists
everywhere. The book is about her life as a hysterical over-ambitious
parent, and what disturbed me, personally, is that she is not the only one
out there.

Whether it’s Ms Chua in America, or Mrs Rao in Matunga, pushing kids to
‘reach their potential’ begins much earlier these days. Moms I meet at
school look at me like I just crawled in from under a particularly grimy
rock when I tell them that my 6-year-old has only just begun to learn
basketball and music. I can see their antennae quivering: Neglectful Mom
Alert!

One lady has been ‘showing’ her kid books of maths tables from the time he
was 3; put him in Abacus classes by 4; ‘piano’ or keyboard classes (yes,
it’s not just the humble ‘Casio’ anymore) by 4.5; and of course, chess by 5.
Another, the mom of a 7-year-old musically gifted child, takes him for
Hindustani, Carnatic, and ‘piano’ classes on alternative days, after he’s
done seven hours at school. Being excessively liberal, she says, ‘If he
finds it too much, I have told him to tell me.’ Yeah, right. See, kids live
to please the adults in their lives. Practically everything is acceptable
because they don’t know of alternatives. That’s why we, as parents, need to
calm the heck down.

Among the favoured classes these days are ‘phonetics’ (doesn’t matter that
the term is wrongly used), grammar, tuition, dance, music, Abacus, Vedic
Maths, story-telling, creativity, taekwondo and chess. Having shoved their
clueless kids into strangers’ homes, mummies enjoy a bit of that precious
commodity – free time. And they’ve earned it by paying to have their kids
‘build their potential’ and ‘increase their confidence’, no? It doesn’t
matter that being pressurized to do too much early in life can actually lead
to anxiety and diffidence in kids.

Increasingly, psychologists tell us that unstructured time – when children
hang about with friends or figure out ways to engage themselves – is
important. Between school hours and various classes, what about this
generation’s unstructured time? Most of us grew up with time which we were
allowed to cheerfully waste. Turns out, that ‘wasted’ time – when we could
do what we liked – is actually an important tool to de-stress and to build
creativity.

The real risk with parents who ‘work so hard’ is that they start expecting
rewards. If Aryaman doesn’t make the building aunties swoon at a ‘society
function’, then why did we send him to all those Hindustani Music classes,
yaar? And if he does sweep ’em off their feet, then, you know, how about
Indian Idol next? Alarmingly, The Guardian’s Terri Apter notes that
over-parented kids often grow up to be ‘compliant and devious’, ‘obsessed
with grades and lacking interest in their subjects’.

Every generation gets the sort of writing on education which reflects its
beliefs and aspirations. In the last century Maria Montessori, Rabindranath
Tagore, Waldorf Steiner, Aurobindo, Gijubhai Badheka and others propagated a
humanistic, benevolent approach to learning. The 70s had John Holt, who
advocated homeschooling. It would be truly sad but telling if Amy Chua – who
slaps and stresses-out her kids – were to write our generation’s educational
classic!